Ground control planning is where many teams either overcomplicate the job or get careless. The correct approach is more disciplined than that. Your control strategy should reflect the quality of the aircraft’s positioning system, the site size and geometry, and how much confidence the final deliverable needs to carry.
Strong RTK and PPK systems can reduce the amount of full ground control needed, especially on cleaner sites. Older aircraft, weaker GNSS workflows, and more difficult sites usually require a more conservative control plan.
What to think about
- Aircraft positioning quality and IMU reliability
- Project size, shape, and relief
- Whether the site has strong visual texture or repetitive surfaces
- How many checkpoints are needed for defensible QA
- Whether the project can tolerate a lighter-control workflow
Aerotas’ practical position: even when technology makes low-control workflows possible, flying a professional survey site with no ground data at all is usually a bad habit.
That ground data may be full control, checkpoints, or a hybrid of both depending on the aircraft and project. But some independent ground truth is how serious teams keep themselves honest.
Distribution matters as much as count
A pile of control near the truck is not a control strategy. The points have to be distributed in a way that actually tests and supports the model across the full site. Control planning is not just a quantity problem. It is a geometry problem.